Gas company shut-offs soar

On the brink of the cold-weather months, more than 56,000 natural-gas customers in the Chicago area remain disconnected for lack of payment. That's up 36% from last year, putting pressure on utilities and local officials to get disconnected households back online before winter begins in earnest.

Peoples Gas and Nicor Inc. are offering new programs to help customers who are behind on their bills. In a pilot that began last month, Peoples has stopped shutting off customers as long as they pay 60% of their monthly bill. For two weeks last month, Nicor offered to reconnect customers who paid half of their outstanding debt and agreed to a payment plan for the rest. Some 1,400 took advantage of the offer.

With the souring economy making it increasingly difficult for people to pay their bills, consumer advocates say the programs are not enough. While federal heating assistance to low-income households in Illinois is up 59% from last year to $237 million, natural-gas prices are also up. For the November-to-March period, Peoples forecasts the gas bill for a typical Chicago household will rise 11%, to $1,183.

"We're running into an awful lot of people who've lost jobs, first-timers applying for energy assistance," says Bob Vondrasek, director of the South Austin Coalition in Chicago, which advocates on behalf of households unable to pay their utility bills. Utilities "have got to be more flexible."

The number of shut-offs at Peoples, which has 840,000 customers in the city, is up more than 20% from last year; at Nicor, with 2.2 million suburban customers, shut-offs are 56% higher.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the city of Chicago may have a lot to say about that. A 2006 legal settlement, aimed principally at reimbursing customers overcharged between 2000 and 2005, requires Peoples to reconnect "hardship" cases.

Peoples contends that the requirement applies only to the 6,000 households disconnected at the time of the settlement. But the attorney general's office interprets the deal as applying to future hardship situations, too. The settlement makes clear that the attorney general and the city can decide who should be reconnected, even if Peoples disagrees.

"We're concerned about this" disagreement, says Paul Gaynor, chief of the attorney general's public interest division. "This is a serious problem that must be addressed."

Discussions between the attorney general's office and Peoples are expected to begin soon.